Re: Nitride Barrel Treatment - what do you know
Now that I've cleaned up 4 melonited barrels, I've got the technique down pretty well. Here's what I've come up with:
Supplies:
Cleaning rod that allows the shaft to spin and follow the rifling
nylon brush for your caliber
spear-tip jag for your caliber
patches for your caliber
Soapy water
Iosso bore paste
First, you need to get the heavy stuff out. Get a cup of hot, soapy water, dip your nylon brush into the cup, and stroke 5-10 times (both ways is fine, you're not going to hurt a damn thing). Rinse the brush in your cup, and keep stroking. Do this routine 5-10 times altogether, dipping/rinsing your brush every 5-10 strokes.
Dry patch the bore
Install your jag, dope up a patch with some Iosso paste, put your muzzle up against the wall (makes it easy to reverse the jag/patch in the bore, because the jag doesn't come out the end of the muzzle), and "lap" the bore with a couple strokes. Pull the jag/patch out, dip it in clean water, and "lap" the bore with a few more strokes. HINT: Your Iosso'd patch will turn brown very quickly.
Dump the foul soap/water solution, and prepare a new, clean one. Reinstall your nylon brush and go back through the stroke/rinse routine you did previously.
Dry patch
Repeat the jag/patch/Iosso routine
Repeat the nylon brush/soapy water routine
Look into the bore, particularly at the grooves. They should now be 99% mirror smooth, with the exception of the appearance of a "film" or "residue" in some spots. If the grooves don't look 99% beautiful, continue the above process until it is.
I found that I simply could *not* get the bore 100% beautiful no matter how much I scrubbed it. However, I've also found that once the bore is 99% clean, if you fire a couple shots and then clean again, it will be 100%
I've also seen that accuracy for those "cleaning shots" is garbage. The latest barrel was a 7mm-08. I got it 99% clean, fired a 5 shot group that measured about 3 MOA, then spent about 5 minutes doing the final clean. The next group was 3/8 MOA.
Here are a couple pics of my 284. All the metalwork has been melonited...